Bioethics.net

Tobacco Control: Comparing US & Australian Labeling Regulations featuring Cathy Caitlin, Executive Director of the Australian Council on Smoking & Health and Doug Blanke, Executive Director of the Public Health Law Center
11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Presentation, 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. Lunch Reception,Hamline University Anderson Center, Room 111 and live webcast, Approved for 1 Standard CLE Credit. Registration fee for CLE credit is $35. Free for Hamline Law Alumni and guests not earning CLE.

Tobacco regulation is rapidly evolving. Ongoing tobacco control litigation in both the U.S. and Australia illustrates current legal challenges to global tobacco regulations. Join us in Saint Paul on January 30, 2013 to hear from U.S. tobacco control expert Doug Blanke, Director of the Public Health Law Center, and from Australian tobacco control expert Cathy Caitlin, Executive Director of the Australian Council on Smoking & Health.

In Australia, legislation mandating plain packaging of tobacco is set to go into effect in December 2012, after the High Court of Australia ruled, in August, against multinational tobacco companies that had sought to block the legislation. Brand logos, colors, and imagery will be banned from all cigarette packages sold in Australia; instead, all packages will be a standard drab color with a standard typeface; and health warnings with graphic images of mouth ulcers, cancerous lungs and gangrenous limbs will dominate the front and back of all packs.

Tobacco litigation has also been ongoing in the United States, surrounding a new federal requirement that would force tobacco companies to put large graphic images on cigarette packages sold in the U.S., as is already required in more than fifty countries. In March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld a constitutional challenge to the facial validity of the graphic warnings requirement. However, in a separate case, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has recently ruled that, as applied by the Food and Drug Administration, the federal mandate violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court may eventually be asked to determine whether tobacco companies have a constitutional right to promote these deadly products free of disturbing warning images.